The heart is not a relatively simple thing
by VictorianLesbian
Summary: <html><head></head>All my tumblr's one-shots on Vastra and Jenny in a neat little package.</html>
1. Lizard

**Prompt1 Vastra vs dead lizard**  
>Notes: pre-canon<p>

«Jenny? Jenny?» Jenny immediately understands that something is wrong. Vastra's voice is strangely agitated, it never happens, and when it does it means something terrible must have happened. She quickly leaves her current job in the kitchen to run towards the greenhouse.  
>«Look.» Says the reptile as soon as she appears at the door pointing towards a spot in between two big terracotta pots.<br>The girl hesitantly walks towards it while the Silurian stays put near her favorite chair, observing the girl's movements as she bends finally able to see what put her mistress in such distress.  
>It's just a common reptile that hasn't moved an inch in spite of their presence and jenny immediately understands why Vastra got so agitated.<br>«I'm sorry, ma'am.» She tells her as she gathers the tiny lifeless body in her towel.  
>The Silurian gets nearer once she can find her courage. Looking at the small lifeless reptile brought back a lot of painful memories and she couldn't find it in herself to touch it. For a moment its green scales had looked just like her own.<p>

«Come on.» Says Jenny as she softly takes her hand to bring her to the garden out back. Vastra is taken aback by this strange unexpected contact of their skin, so soft and delicate. She can hardly feel it when jenny lets her hand go to move closer to the flower patch, bending down to gently lay the small corpse in a freshly dig hole.

«We have to give it a proper burial.» She explains moving closer to let her see what she's doing, and Vastra is thankful that jenny understood her feeling with no need to explain, with no need to make fun of her own insecurities.  
>The earth covers the cotton covered lizard and jenny turns towards her with a bright smile on her face.<br>«Now that spring is near you will see a lot of them in the garden.» She tells her pointing to the wall where two of them can be seen bathing in the sun. The Silurian observes full of curiosity. they've only recently moved to Paternoster Row and the gin palace where they had lived before did not have a patch of green they could call their own. In that dark, dank apartment all they might have found were cockroaches and spiders, she didn't know there were creatures similar to her own on earth. Now that Jenny has shown them to her, her heart fills with warmth and her smile widens like a child's on Christmas morning. Maybe the girl doesn't even know how much her mistress, currently admiring the peacefully sun bathing creatures laying amongst green grass and flowers, truly appreciated that gesture. that picture had evoked in her memories of many centuries before, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and she, a young cub, would play fight with her sisters. As she breathes in deep the fresh spring air Jenny's perfume reaches unexpectedly her nostrils and her heart beats a little faster. That smell, that presence can make her forget the earth used to be theirs before humans invaded because now, even though the girls doesn't yet know it, she has someone to fill her days and her heart with joy and a love she didn't think possible.

**Prompt2 Jenny vs Lizard**

A scream coming at her from the kitchen immediately puts all of Vastra's senses in alert. her jenny is in danger and she needs to run down the first floor stairs to save her.  
>They almost run into each other on the bottom of the stairs and Jenny curls up in her arms. she looks terrified and the Silurian can't help but be surprised to see her in such a state. In all those years together they have fought all sorts of enemies and she doesn't know what could possibly be so scary in their own kitchen to have her running away.<br>The young girl still attached to her arm she walks surreptitiously in the kitchen while Jenny points at something under the end table with a trembling hand.  
>«Under there.» She says while remaining on the doorstep but as soon as she sees the menacing creature dart from under the table she runs screaming on top of a chair. Vastra catches the small creature that has frightened her wife half to death.<br>«A lizard?» Asks the Silurian, wondering if Jenny is somehow making fun of her.  
>«Keep that thing away from me.» She orders, her arms shielding as if the small creature could jump her at any moment.<br>«Dear, you can not be afraid of a lizard, just look at it, it's… it's a Lizard!» She says pointing to herself first and then to the small wriggling body in her hand.  
>Vastra feels slightly offended that her wife should hate a creature so similar to herself.<br>«Those things are unpredictable and they move so quick…» Explains Jenny, fully aware her fear is absolutely irrational, more so for a woman married to a very real lizard woman.  
>She kisses her, she hugs her, she shares her bed, but the Silurian isn't really a lizard and Jenny knows that very well. Her movements are different than those of that quick-paced unpredictable little creature that has invaded her kitchen.<br>Meanwhile Vastra releases her mini-sister out into the open through the kitchen door. Jenny can now dare to put her feet back on the ground, an embarrassed smile on her face.


	2. Jenny's hair

Vastra walked into the bathroom after having seen Jenny take out the scissors from the kitchen cabinet. She didn't mean to spy on the girl but she couldn't for the life of her imagine what the girl could be doing in a bathroom with that kind of object.  
>She saw the long black hair being set free of their bun and her curiosity grew even more. She saw Jenny stand in front of the mirror and take the sharp metal to her long black tresses.<br>«NO!» She screamed upon entering the room, the young girl's heart skipping a beat out of fright.  
>«Ma'am you scared me. Why the sudden scream?» Asked the girl, heart still thumping in her chest.<br>«What are you doing with those?» Asked Vastra taking away the sharp object.

«I'm just cutting it a little.» Said Jenny trying to take the scissors back from the Silurian's hand, unsuccessfully.  
>«Why are you hurting yourself? Aren't they fine the way they are?» Asked the reptile in a way that had the young human understand what was going on. She couldn't withhold a roaring laugh. Vastra was slightly offended by the human's laugh and she couldn't understand why Jenny was behaving like that. She was only trying to protect her.<br>«Silly old Lizard.» She said affectionately caressing her cheek. «Cutting hair isn't painful. There are no nerve endings in them, you see. They'll only grow even stronger and better for it.» She explained with a smile taking back the scissors and making Vastra blush because of her mistake. Humans had so many things that were different from those of her own kind she sometimes had trouble remembering them all.  
>She sat down next to Jenny who, scissors in hand, had gotten back to work on her hair. She looked at the falling strands of cut hair lifeless on the ground while Jenny looked at her and her confusion with a loving curious smile on her face.<br>«Do you want to try it?» Asked the girl, giving her the scissors only to get a curious unsure look from the Lizard woman who however took the instrument without objection.  
>She took one of the many strands on hair in her fingers even though they were trying to escape her grasp.<br>«Are you sure this won't hurt you?» She asked again to be absolutely certain.  
>«I'm sure.» She confirmed putting herself in the Silurian's hands who closed the blades of the scissors with fright over the tips of Jenny's hair.<br>The sound came to her ears like a melody that had her trembling, the girl noticed and smiled at the look of glee the reptile had unconsciously put on her face. It was nice to feel Vastra's hands in her hair, taking care of her. They were both enjoying that mundane moment that had become a bonding experience between them.  
>The hand on her hair pulled the owner of the black tresses towards the mouth of the reptile and among all the kisses the haircut took longer than anticipated but neither of them cared about the time wasted with their lips brushing.<br>It was so very nice, and the following time, Vastra thought, she'd ask Jenny to let her do it again.


	3. Sleeping beauty

Vastra and the Doctor had been walking at a quick pace for about half an hour through that dreary place.  
>An abandoned amusement park, left unguarded and ruled by a ruthless madman.<br>He would kidnap young girls and make them the main attraction of his sick fantasies.  
>They had already found and released a poor girl forced to dance in glass shoes, her feet bleeding. The poor thing, after being freed from her cage had collapsed unconscious at their feet. She was out of her mind for all those long days of torture.<br>The nearest attraction they had found close by had been of a girl with clear signs of poisoning.

Strax had found the source in a basket of red apples that the poor thing had been forced to eat, and had stayed behind with the girl to administer the proper care.  
>They walked side by side with caution, the madman had kidnapped Jenny and now held her god knows where in that hellish place.<br>They entered into yet another attraction and found something even more shocking, not only young women had been kidnapped, but a school-age child stood there, hung by his hands and feet like a puppet on strings that had him move without his will while a wooden mask was set in place on his young face.

They immediately rescued the boy and directed him towards Strax and the already freed girls.  
>But where could Jenny be? That spectral place gave shivers at every step, and they half expected the madman to jump out of one of those disused attractions with some kind of monster army, but everything was quiet, too quiet.<br>The huge ferris wheel creaked ominously as the sky filled with threatening thunder.  
>«I must find her Doctor. If something were to happen to her… » Vastra said, clenching her fists, feeling they were losing time, and that at that point anything could have happened to the girl.<br>«We'll find her, I promise.» Nodded the time lord, well aware of the Silurian's growing impatience and concern.  
>An angry Vastra was scary, but a worried Vastra was a thousand times more frightening.<br>«Let's go.» He cheered but did not have the courage to touch her for fear of setting off the bomb that lay under the warrior's skin. Every time they opened a door, Vastra's heart seemed to stop, and every time it hissed in frustration when Jenny could not be seen. She wondered where she could have been taken and what horrible fate had that insane criminal imposed on her.  
>She was loosing patience at all the nonsense that crazy mad had left for them to find. A girl in an aquarium, two children in a house of sweets, a little girl locked in a cage with three bears ready to devour her. Every door seemed to lead to more and more distressing scenarios and this show had gone on for far too long. They ran at breakneck speed to save one life after another. When the Doctor had brought the Paternoster gang with him he could not have imagined that they would run into such a terrible adventure.<br>«I must learn not to trust amusement parks anymore.» Snorted the Doctor at seeing a more and more distressed Vastra.  
>When the TARDIS had landed there, the place had not looked larger than a normal amusement park, but it now seemed to them they had walked a greater area than Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens combined. That place seemed to grow with every step they took closer to the big castle overlooking the whole thing. It seemed even more threatening than all the other buildings they had visited so far. The windows had been broken and moss and weeds grew everywhere. The walls were covered with intricate tangles of branches that covered even the front door.<br>Regardless of the thorns, her hands began to tear away the branches that would not allow her to enter the abandoned castle.  
>When she finally succeeded in entering the place it was silent and spooky. There was no one in sight. With sore hands and a pounding heart, the Silurian ran up the stairs.<br>They sped through the deserted corridors, higher and higher still, up to the tower. The Doctor struggled to keep up with her as they walked up hundreds of steps that seemed to be neverending.  
>«Doctor!» A scream from the tops of the tower made him increase his pace, until he got, exhausted, to see what had upset his friend Vastra so greatly.<br>Lying on a huge four-poster bed that was covered with pillows and satin sheets rested a seemingly peacefull Jenny.  
>The face relaxed in sleep while Vastra fretted at her side to make sure she was still breathing.<br>«I do not know what to do.» She admitted as she felt the man's presence next to her.  
>«Well it's quite simple, I would say.» Marveled the Doctor. It couldn't be that Vastra did not know what was next at this point in the story, could it.<br>«I do not understand. Did she faint? Is she ill? She doesn't seem to be hurt..» Asked the undeterred reptile woman, feeling her beloved heartbeat.  
>«Jenny doesn't read you fairy tales?» Asked the time lord, trying not to sound too amused not to irritate Vastra.<br>«Sorry, Doctor, but what does that have to do with anything?»  
>«Fairy tales. Fables of the human world for children. It seems to me that we have a pretty obvious one.» Urged the man hoping a light bulb would go off in Vastra's head, but she only looked at him as if he had suddenly gone mad.<br>The time lord snorted, he had never been good with all these romantic things and now, blushing as red a beet, he decided to speak frankly.  
>«The kiss of true love.» He said pointing with both arms at the girl still peacefully asleep in the bed in front of them.<br>Vastra kept looking from Jenny to the Doctor, thinking she must be in an absurd dream from which she would wake up soon, and definitely a dream Jenny would laugh about all morning, teasing her, as soon as she was done explaining it to her.  
>The woman sighed, resigned, her friend always seemed so hopeful and she couldn't really damage anything by trying, so she leaned toward the girl's face to press a light kiss on the rosy, and to her relief warm, lips.<br>When the broke apart it did not seem to be any change and she was about to make some sarcastic joke to the Doctor when a slight groan rose from the bed.  
>«Vastra?» The girl's thick voice made the reptile's heart jump, and in a moment she took the girl in her arms.<br>«Oh, you're fine, thank the goddesses.» She sighed kissing her head.  
>«I don't remember what happened.» Jenny admitted trying to remember why she was lying in a bed in a room that she did not recognize.<br>She remembered walking out of the TARDIS along with all the others, seeing a terrifying amusement park apparently abandoned, hearing screams, and remembered running until she felt a strong hit on her back and had everything go white before her.  
>«Thank you for saving me.» Whispered Jenny, clutching the arms of her beloved when she could finally stand.<br>«That's what makes true love.» Vastra winked at her smiling, squeezing her even more closely and bending down ready to seal their promise of true love once more.  
>«Hem..» Came a muffled cough from behind them «Much as I hate to interrupt, we still have a mad man to catch, ladies.»<br>The women broke apart quickly, jumping at the Doctor's voice, as if they had forgotten his presence in light of the joy of their reunion.  
>«Ready we are.» Smirked a still nightgown dressed Jenny, suddenly invigorated and brandishing a wooden cudgel broken from one of the many branches that enveloped the eary room. A blushing Doctor and an even more deeply embarassed reptilian woman following her up close behind.<p> 


	4. Little Pains

Jenny came to the door to see what was happening. She kept hearing a scraping noises and loud moans coming from the room upstairs.  
>«Are you all right?» She asked but received no answer. Jenny had already figured out what was happening.<br>A small little green head, covered with scales and still underdeveloped ridges, looked at her with deep, dark eyes.  
>Small red spots of blood stained the otherwise white dress of Aria.<br>«Honey, how many times must I tell you to call me before you reduce yourself this way?» She asked, hurrying towards her child. It had now happened several times in the past seven years since the child was born. By now the girl knew that the moulting would bother her, but she still persisted in not wanting anyone's help. In this she was very like her mother Vastra, Jenny thought. She always kept ready some chamomile lotion to help her two girls in those most delicate times.  
>She removed her little one's white linen dress and began to give her some relief with the cool soothing liquid as she held her on her lap, rocking lazily on the rocking chair.<br>Vastra had noticed a fuss on the top floor and had rushed to see if they needed help, while their second child followed her closely behind. The child, unlike his older sister had no moulting pains to suffer, his skin was like that of his mother Jenny, and he always took a lot of fun in his older sister's discomfort.  
>«Do not tease your sister, John, otherwise when you will have acne and you will be covered in hairs it will be us teasing you.» Scolded Vastra, understand how the girl might feel at that moment.<br>«Until you're fully grown you will need to go through this process at least three times a year. Then when you will have finally grown up it will only happen once a year.» Vastra explained her eldest daughter, whom was letting her mother soothe at the little cuts she had procured herself by scratching at the dried scales.  
>«I know mother.» Said the little girl. «I just wish I was like mummy.» Aria said, more sullen than ever.<br>«Us mammals have our problems as well. Don't think that only Silurians have trouble. Believe me sweetie, I know it's annoying, but I'm glad you're so much like your mother.» Jenny said dropping a kiss on the girl's head, making a smile spread on her daughter's face again.  
>A small moan came from John who he wanted his share of his mothers attention.<br>«Oh come here you, little monkey.» Vastra teased, lifting him up in her arms, the child hiding his pout in her neck.


	5. That perfect moment

Vastra wonders when she began to fall in love with Jenny. It must have been a long time ago. Gradually she stopped seeing her as the weak fragile-pink-skinned human with too much hair and funny eyebrows. When did she stop seeing Jenny Flint just as a disgusting monkey to look at her as the woman she loves more than anything else in the world?

Vastra recalls their first meeting, or at least part of it. Jenny thinks Vastra saw her for the first time that night when she saved her, but there's a memory that Vastra holds in the deepest recesses of her heart with greed, for fear that it might escape from her mind; the first time she saw Jenny she was still so angry with the human race that she could have killed her.  
>She was with the doctor that day, and Jenny was just one of the many apes crowding the road, she was little more than a girl trying to make some money by selling matches. She had seen her in the crowd and did not know why the her attention had been captured on her out of everyone. Vastra had been walking with the doctor under her heavy cloak that made her look like everyone else. She was telling him about joining the local Freak Show and he hadn't been happy about the idea. But she had not found a place in the society, she knew they would have hunted her down and killed her if they had known of her true nature. She felt more at ease with those society deemed as bizarre, unnatural.<br>She had become part of that world even though she didn't tolerate those stinking apes.  
>There was always a reason for the appearance of the Doctor and Vastra did not have to wait long to find out that their mission that day was to convince an alien, with an impossible name, to leave Earth and go back to his planet. It did not seem a trivial matter since he had taken possession of a track of the city's sewers and did not seem willing to leave his new hideout.<p>

Vastra remembered that there had been a fight. She had resurfaced so enraged she would have killed everyone around if the Doctor had not helped them escape. And she had seen her again, the girl with matches: she had not seem scared, she had helped the Doctor to reassure the people around and then had disappeared with the human flood.  
>And then, suddenly, one night, she had found her again. The look, the smell of fear mixed with determination, she would never be able to forget. She had rushed down the narrow street and had saved just in time. Vastra recalls how her body than had not affected her in the least, she remembers the torn cloth revealing her thighs and her chest, "pink and disgusting" she had thought seeing her passed out in that dirty and degraded corner of the city. She had taken her home. This girl had fallen on her path twice and she was sure there was a reason.<p>

But it's a long time after that that Vastra realizes her pink skin doesn't make her sick anymore, that her thighs and her breasts make her breath break in her throat and her guts twist pleasantly.  
>One summer afternoon Jenny is hit by a strong storm and comes home soaking wet; the flimsy dress stuck to her flesh makes Vastra unable to stop devouring her body with her eyes involuntarily and tasting the air around her with her tongue. From that day on training in the basement becomes more and more difficult because Vastra cannot stop thinking about Jenny and how much she wants to land her on the floor and feel for herself the pink skin that warms her dreams. But she keep herself in check and every time she curses herself for being so horribly weak. What would her sisters say of her in her? They would be disgusted by that frail and weak girl. But Vastra knows that Jenny is neither weak nor frail, she just has to look in the her deep brown eyes to read strength and determination from that little thing that lies before her<p>

Vastra wonders when she started to look so closely at Jenny's smile. She had never noticed before how red and inviting her lips are, her brain telling her that she should stop wasting all that time talking and should just pin her to the wall and never leave those soft inviting lips alone again.

Vastra wonders when she started to feel an unspeakable desire for the little woman beside her every day and that every day becomes more and more beautiful.  
>She stifles her moans in the pillow at night so as not to be heard while touching herself and imagining that instead of her hand there is Jenny making her come. And when finally her fantasy is completed she curses and get angry with herself for having even thought Jenny wanted something as disgusting as her. She was crazy if she even thought Jenny was the least bit interested in an old grumpy green lizard as herself.<p>

Vastra reminds the hope of an autumn day when, walking down the street, they came across two women walking arm in arm. Once home Vastra asked why one of them was dressed as a man and Jenny had explained to her, Toms she had called them, and then she had added that found nothing wrong in that. And Vastra's heart had begun to swell with hope. She had explained herself that in her society it was considered a normal and natural thing and only the idiotic apes would condemn such a natural act. It had then seemed to Vastra that Jenny had started seeing her with different eyes.

Vastra still wonders how her feelings of hatred can be completely extinct, and have indeed turned into a love so complete and overwhelming. The girl manages to undo her will and she is disgusted with herself for this at times. One day Jenny falls ill and Vastra doesn't know what to do and is hit by a pain so strong she thinks she'll die. No longer able to imagine herself without the girl at her side, she curses herself every hour of that horrible day of agony because she never told her she loved her but then Jenny heals and she looses all her courage.  
>Vastra wonders what will happen if she tells Jenny she loves her. She is afraid of loneliness now, afraid of rejection but most of all afraid that Jenny will hate her if she only dares explain her feelings, but what Vastra does not know is that Jenny feels exactly the same way.<p>

Vastra wonders how they ended up kissing in a dirty and dangerous corner on the city.  
>«I hate you! You don't understand anything!» Had told her Jenny and her eyes had been flooded with tears. Vastra had been dying inside, she had been so insensitive that night, but her foolish pride would not allow her to apologize. And then Jenny had kissed her and all the rest could have gone to hell. The thieves, the mission, Scotland Yard. She was kissing her beloved human, and nothing and no one could stop them.<br>«You're stupid.» Had said Jenny with a smile when they had been forced to separate due to lack of oxygen.  
>«Yes, I am.» Had agreed Vastra only to drag her back against a dirty wall, to kiss her again and again.<p>

«What are you thinking of?» Asks Jenny intertwining their fingers. They have just made love, their first time has been just as Vastra had always dreamed of and now her beloved is completely abandoned in her arms; her soft pink flesh, the hair scattered everywhere on her own green skin make her even more sexy to Vastra's eyes.  
>The Silurian moves closer and lays a soft kiss on the tip of the nose.<br>There is a sense of joy in her stomach that Vastra is not sure she's ever felt before, and she wonders if Jenny is happy as well, if she did not hurt her, if it had been just as she had imagined too, if she does not regret that she has given herself completely.  
>«You think too much.» Jenny straddles her hips, not having gotten an answer to her previous question. Vastra starts to stroke her hips, following the curves of her body that she had learned to love completely that night.<br>Vastra feels desire flood her again and her eyes wander between the girl's legs.  
>«Oh, I see.» Says Jenny, following the older woman's gaze with a mischievous look and they start pleasuring each other again.<p>

Vastra wonders if it is really important to know when everything started and thinks she fell in love with her the first time she saw her on the sidewalk with her matches, she had loved her and had sought her desperately until every crumb of her soul was filled with her sweet and comforting presence. And at night when they fall asleep exhausted in one another's arms she can only close her eyes and hope the world would stop in that perfect moment of her life.


	6. Just one word

The warm air coming from the heater and the scalding hot cup of tea in her hands were a relief for Jenny who, after all those months, still couldn't believe she was living in that warm house with a lizard woman as an employer. She was stranger and more unexpected than any of the employer she could have dreamed up for herself, but Madame wasn't one to leave her wanting for anything. The meals were plenty and there was heating, something Jenny had never experienced before. There was also a stash of the finest tea England had to offer, at the ready in the pantry.  
>Only fourteen and she was already luckier than she could have expected given her situation. She had been lucky not to have found herself employed by a sleazy old man in one of those pleasure houses one could find around town.<br>She had been lucky to have found Madame, even though the circumstance of that first encounter had seemed, at first, anything but lucky.

Jenny swallowed another mouthful of hot elixir looking at Vastra out of the corner of her eye as she moved frantically from one end to the other of the small apartment they shared over that noisy and ill-frequented gin palace. She had been leafing through books all day, while Jenny herself had tried to read with some difficulty one single book. Vastra had been so adamant she receive some form of education, so Jenny was trying not to disappoint her employer even though she had barely been thought to read as a small child. The fear of being eaten alive by her master in case of disappointment was definitely enough of a motivator.  
>«Jenny?» Suddenly Vastra's voice made her jump on the chair she was sitting on.<br>«Yes, Madame?» she asked standing up immediately at her employer's command.  
>«I've looked for it in every book or vocabulary I own and I can't find anything that will explain to me the meaning of a certain phrase.» the lizard woman looked contrite and frustrated.<br>«I've heard this word spoken often on the streets at night and maybe you know what it means.» Vastra looked pretty hopeful to have her enigma answered. Maybe the young human cub she had rescued on the streets could help clear her confusion.  
>«And what's the word, Madame?» asked Jenny surprised there was something Vastra didn't know.<br>«Fuck me.» confessed the Silurian whispering unconsciously, as if realizing it might not mean a nice thing.  
>Jenny blushed furiously, the softly whispered warm tones of the Lizard woman made her tea go down the wrong way and she started spluttering it and couching embarrassedly as Vastra could only thank her Silurian reflexes for having made her jump back if she didn't now have tea all over her gown.<br>«Madame!» Jenny almost shout out of her embarrassment.  
>«Is there something wrong? Are you well?» She asked, confused by the girl's behaviour but still curious about the answer to her question.<br>«Madame, I can't answer your question. I'm sorry.» she tried to stop her.  
>«I will ask someone else than.» shrugged the Silurian, moving her body in a way Jenny had still to get used to and that made her tremble with some ancestral fear. The girl couldn't let her employer run around asking embarrassing questions. She grabbed her at the last second before the woman could walk out the door.<br>«All right, all right, you won.» she said with a big sigh, blushing once again but seeing a big smile spread across the face of the other woman.  
>«When… two people, are… intimate…» Jenny was finding it hard to express the concept without crossing the lines a lady should never cross.<br>«During a coupling? As a mating ritual?» asked Vastra so candidly the girl blushed once again.  
>«Yes, you could say that. When someone finds pleasure in that certain activity, sometimes they say that to start the…mating ritual.» she said in one breath before her bravery could vanish. A moment of embarrassed silence fell upon them and then Vastra resumed her reading without saying a word to her maid again. Jenny on her part was more than happy for the lack of embarrassing questions.<p>

It's only after some years that Vastra can fully comprehend what Jenny had tried to explain with such careful words.  
>In a night made particularly warm with covers and duvets and naked bodies intimately intertwined, finally Vastra feels it. A warmth spreading through her abdomen, a desire to have those hands, that are now caressing her so lovingly, touch her where no one has for millions of years. And it's than that her lips part and those words that had meant nothing to her a few years back now flow from her mouth on a stuttering breath. And the girl that had looked so embarrassed then now winks at her and grants the wish of the woman she loves.<p> 


	7. My words are not enough

The Christmas tree entirely decorated of colourful bows soared quietly in a corner of the living room of number 13, Paternoster Row. Two figures were resting quietly on the sofa enjoying the warmth that the fire offered them. Sleepy kisses were exchanged incessantly that December 24th night while Jenny clung to the surprisingly warm body that held her.  
>When Jenny was a little girl she never would have expected that the fairy tales her mother told her the night before bed were true, or at least that they would be for her. Small and dirty suburbs girl, grown too fast among too many sisters and brothers, without education, without hope of leaving that dirty and infamous neighbourhood. And then she had come across Vastra and she never would have thought that her "Prince Charming", who had saved her from the bad guys, as she had so often heard about in fairy tales, was the woman who now held her with so much love and devotion between her arms.<br>Since Jenny took her courage with both hands and kissed her employer, finding that her feelings were reciprocated, they had become unable to separate. It had been weeks since that first kiss, and since then neither one was able to live without feeling the others on her lips.  
>There was that unspoken feeling that Jenny wanted to express out loud, she knew how she felt about Vastra, had known from the first moment she realized it was not just friendship or respect what was between them. She had to gather all her courage to kiss her the first time, even if she thought her heart would not stand the tension of the moment, but immediately after she had learned that it was worth it.<br>They had shared a bed for the first time, and not for a need for heat. It was a night that both had long dreamed of and Vastra had proved to be a sweet lover careful with the soft body and Jenny's so easily scratched skin.  
>Vastra 's hand slid under her clothes bringing the girl back to the present. Jenny could never have enough of the older woman's caresses, she knew how to make her lose her head in mere seconds.<br>A soft hiss against her hear made Jenny shiver.  
>«What does that mean?» Asked the girl who had now learned to categorize most of her mistress's hisses, but she was sure that she had never heard that one before. She shivered unconsciously, there was something in that sound, as if it were an important word, as if she knew she had to listen carefully. Her senses, though human, told her that Vastra had never used it before, with the hard way her tongue was rolling in her mouth.<br>«It's a promise. A word that you choose to tell only one person in the course of the life of a Silurian. In your language there is no word like it so I decided to say it in the only language it exists in.» Vastra explained, clutching a little nearer the body of her companion.  
>«Try to say it anyway.» prayed Jenny feeling her heart beat a bit faster.<br>«If I were to say it in English it would undermine it and a simple "I love you" would not be enough to describe the feelings I have for you.» Vastra explained with such a natural flare in expressing her love that it struck the human.  
>Normally Madame was very reserved and reluctant to show her state of mind, but with her she had stripped herself bare, had opened her heart with ease and simplicity.<br>«Then teach me how to say it, because I think that "I love you" would undermine even my feelings for you.» Jenny confessed making her companion smile. Vastra was happy to repeat the word a million times that night, and as hard as Jenny tried, her human tongue could not hiss so perfectly as Madame Vastra's did, but the Silurian was equally happy to feel the lips of the woman she loved pronounce that promise to just her for all eternity.


	8. Questo tè sa di te

Jenny had never travelled before in countries as distant and different from her own. Japan is fascinating and so different from London that everything leaves her speechless. Vastra is happy to see her young assistant so happy and excited for this new adventure and she will let them do everything the young girl might want. They are guests of an ancient and royal family, the man of the house, Akihito-sama is a proud samurai, never willing to bow before the enemy despite his now several white hair. His wife, Kyoko-san, a small woman almost invisible, with only her nods and gestures to be understood. Both occupants of the house are kind and at their disposal for anything. Jenny feels useless for Madame, she is not carrying out her daily duties but Vastra assures her that she is there only as her assistant and not as her maid.  
>When that evening, Jenny enters the room with a light kimono adorned with small petals of cherry blossoms, Vastra is left breathless. The girl is beautiful and the Silurian would want to be able to embrace and touch the body of her young friend. For months now she has known clearly how much she desires her. If she had just been a young human like her she would have only had to ask her parents for her hand and then she would be able to love her completely as she has dreamt for months now, but she is not what she imagines to be pleasing to the eye and to the tastes of Jenny, although the girl proved to be more than extraordinary for the place and the time she comes from. She knows that her preferences in company are not like those of her peers, that had been clear since the early days of their acquaintance, but that was not the point. She was covered with scales and almost as old as the earth itself, surly and unpleasant at times, and in the early times of their cohabitation not so kind with the terms in which she described the apes. How could she think a young human girl would be interested in her?<br>«The lady gave me this. I think the colour fits perfectly with your beautiful scales.» She says the girl handing her a beautiful purple kimono.  
>«Kyoko-san asked for us to join her in the first floor room, says she is waiting for us for the tea ceremony.» She explains, starting to help her mistress out of her combat uniform. After several tries and attempts they give up and have to call on the hostess for help.<br>They get downstairs and it is immediately clear to them that tea will not be served as it is in London, here everything is different. First thing is the bow, in these days they have really had to do many, to enter the low door leading to the sparsely furnished room. Carefully the woman puts the necessary things on the mat, every move dictated by the ritual. The cloth with which every object is cleaned up, the precise layout of the individual elements. Water bubbles, gurgling from a big dark kettle, a long wooden spoon collects water and brings it to the bowl and Kyoko-sama begins, slowly, to turn the bamboo whisk in the bowl. She adds the green substance that Vastra recognizes as being tea. Its smell and texture, however, are different from the way it is in London, and again the two warriors, in strict silence, watch the mixing of the tea.  
>Vastra respects the traditions of these ancient and far away people. She almost feels like she has gone back in time, to when military discipline was her life. This ritual too is made of discipline and precision in every gesture, as a samurai's battle.<br>After a good whisk the silent woman gives Jenny the bowl that she brings to her lips, not really knowing what is the right thing to do. Her pink lips rest on the cup and Vastra watches as her breathing accelerates unknowingly. The wide kimono sleeves move independently of her will, baring her forearms. That sight would make any Victorian girl, accustomed to covering almost their entire body blush. Vastra falls in love with every inch her eyes can reach. It is a rarity for Jenny to let her see her neck, now uncovered, and the Silurian can not help but follow the perfect line going from the back of her to the first vertebra of her spine.  
>Jenny turns to Vastra, handing her the small white bowl and when the reptile woman brings it to her face at the same point where Jenny's mouth had been before, the smell of the girl reaches her like a slap. It leaves her stunned and, even though she knows she is in public, she can not refrain from collecting the little saliva with her tongue, immediately trying to act normal, and puts her lips where just moments before had been those of the girl. The tea tastes like Jenny, where her hands have held the small bowl and where her mouth has settled. Every inch of that small object brings upon her the girl's presence, and for Vastra's highly developed senses it is deafening. Her heart pounding in her chest, she's lucky no one in the room knows that her scales are now so emerald in colour and so bright because of the heat and excitement she is now feeling. Her eyes narrow as she imagines of kissing the girl she loves. Who knows, Vastra thinks, how will Jenny's lips feel the day she'll be able to gather the necessary courage to really kiss her.<br>A warm hand rests on her thigh and Vastra comes very near to spilling the tea all over her kimono.  
>«Is everything all right ma'am?» Asks Jenny quietly seeing the older woman in distress.<br>«Everything is fine, dear.» She lies with a smile, but Jenny is satisfied and goes back to observe Kyoko-san.  
>The feeling of the warmth of Jenny's hand lingers on her leg, its scales seemingly wanting to retain that heat within them, while the owner of the leg moves uneasily in her forced position that has her feet and legs aching. A warmth and moist feeling makes its way between her legs. Vastra finds herself for the second time during those interminable minutes blushing. She can not run outside in the open air to vent her frustration and the smell and warmth of Jenny continue to reach her as tidal waves making her feel unworthy of being in a place so sacred for its occupants. She forces herself to breathe in a calm and controlled manner, taking large breaths and looking away from all that pink skin that she can catch a glimpse of in the openings offered by the kimono.<br>She gives the cup back to the owner of the house who wordlessly thanks her with a bow and Vastra does the same.  
>Then when everything is done, every item is cleaned according to tradition, and so also Vastra's heart is brought back to being quiet.<p> 


End file.
